Hunting Azrael
by Bella7
Summary: Mutilated victims. An angel of Death. And a double-dose of CSI romance. Co-written with SomewhereApart. Rated M for violence and eventual sexytimes


AN: Okay, this is the first co-writing attempt between myself and the lovely SomewhereApart. I am cross-posting the prologue to this fic under my name to give those on my alert list a chance to know it exists. This prologue and the rest of the story can be found here : .net/s/4767663/1/ and on her author page from now on. Enjoy!

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**Prologue**

The first thing she noticed was the smell—fresh paint and bleach. The second was the feel of the plastic—sweat-damp and sticky—peeling away from the side of her face as she shifted her head. The third was that she couldn't see. Or move her hands. Or her feet.

Actually, she couldn't even feel her hands or her feet.

She couldn't feel anything.

Trying for a moment to shove away the dread that was trickling through her, she forced herself to remember what had happened.

Think, damnit. Try to remember.

Work—she remembered work. Nothing weirder than usual. She'd roasted the beans for tomorrow, locked the door, closed the gate and...

Nothing.

Until this.

A squeaking hinge interrupted her thoughts. Blindly she looked toward the sound, the plastic ripping almost painfully away from her cheek as she whipped her head around.

"Hello, beautiful."

That voice. She knew that voice. Where had she heard it before?

She felt the roughness of his calloused fingers slide down the clammy side of her face—cringing, she tried to move away.

"Ah ah ah..." A hand moved underneath her hair to grip at her neck. "Where do you think you're going?" Fingers slipped beneath her blindfold and pulled the cloth away from her eyes.

The world swam for a moment before the shapes began to settle into focus. She searched for something—anything—to use as a landmark, but there was nothing. Just white, window-less walls, and a full-length mirror. Only her feet were visible in the reflection, numb and bound uselessly together.

The voice had retreated to the corner of the room and she remained at eye level only with his boots. She tried to roll over, somehow managed to do so successfully and discovered in a particularly disconcerting fashion that it wasn't just her hands and feet that were numb, it was almost everything from her shoulders down. It was as if she didn't exist below the neck, but she was sure that if she did, her bound arms would be wrenched painfully beneath her.

He'd evaded her sight line again, so she scanned the room and tried to remember anything from Girl Scout survival training or all those years watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer that could be of help in this situation. No such luck.

She could see that the plastic sheeting spread from one end of the floor clear to the other; the surface beneath was solid concrete. There rest of the room was sparse, almost clinical. There was the mirror, a chain dangling from the ceiling with thick hook on the end, and a long metal table just a few feet from her. He was behind it now, and she could hear the _tink-tink_ of metal on metal as he fiddled with whatever rested atop it, the long, steel length of the tabletop obscuring his view of her.

Okay. Okay. Now seemed like the perfect time to panic. If she could roll, she could get up, right? And if she could get up, she could run? She could just imagine she felt everything and psyche her body out. Yes. That was what she would do.

She pushed hard against the floor, trying to shove herself up into a sitting position. Or at least she thought she did. Nothing moved, and she couldn't feel any of the parts she needed for leverage. Crap!

And then she heard the crinkle of his boots on the plastic again, watched as he moved as if in slow motion toward the far edge of the table, around the end, and into her line of view. It was him. She knew him! Black coffee with room for cream and six Splendas. She saw him every day. Every single day. He always remembered her name – and always paid cash so she never knew his. He was _nice_, he was… He'd invited her to that concert last week, and she'd politely declined. Oh God.

He was empty-handed now, but his hands were gloved. He smiled at her – the same charming smile he always gave her along with his two-dollars-and-thirty-eight-cents at 7:15 every morning. Had his eyes always been that… maniacal when he did it? "Hello, Claire. I didn't bring any coffee – I'm pretty sure you'll have no problem staying alert – but there's water if you're thirsty."

She didn't reply, just stared at him in confused fear.

"Oh come on, sweetheart." When he reached down then and yanked her up roughly, the world spun against the sudden movement. "You're going to be here for a while, so you if you're thirsty, I'd recommend taking that drink." His voice had gone dark and dangerous, threatening. In her panic, she just nodded. "That's my girl," he cooed darkly, dragging her to the center of the room—she'd almost forgotten her feet were bound until right then—stopping directly across from the mirror and directly below the hook in the ceiling. It wasn't until that moment that she realized she'd been stripped down to nothing but the skimpy Victoria's Secret panties she'd bought just for Jason's birthday last month. Oh, God, Jason. Was he looking for her, she wondered? Had he even realized yet that she was missing? How long had she been here, anyway?

Her captor untied one of her wrists and she tried to struggle, tried to break free, and to her surprise he actually let her. It was pointless, though – she hopped once, then lost balance and tumbled onto her knees. He laughed at her – a chilling, sociopathic-movie-villain kind of laugh – and reached down to yank her up again. His hand around her arm was too strong, too solid. "I wouldn't recommend trying to escape. And don't bother screaming for help – the walls are soundproof. I decide when you leave—not you. In fact, you made your last decision around the time you told that loverboy of yours not to bother coming over tonight, because you were _too tired_." He sneered the last bit in a taunting, girly voice. "Thanks for that, by the way. He'd probably be calling out the search party by now and, hey, maybe you'd get out of here sooner. But I guess we all make our decisions in life."

Crap, crap, crap! Claire was pretty sure that his timeline for releasing her was "never," so she kept up the futile struggle – as least until he rammed one of those solid fists into her ribcage. She gasped, but felt nothing except a slow-blooming echo of pain deep inside. When she tried to wrench away again, the pain throbbed harder, and it was enough to quell any more attempts to fight him. She was going to die here. She knew it.

"That's better." He wrenched her arms up over her head, retying her wrist in a knot that looked tight but felt like nothing, then yanked her up onto her tiptoes and situated the rope over the hook in the ceiling before walking away. She was trapped there, staring at her own terrified reflection in the mirror, strung up like an animal waiting for slaughter. Which, she supposed, she was. Maybe she'd be lucky and he'd make it quick.

But then she made the mistake of looking over at that long, sterile table and her blood ran cold. The surface held a series of tools, all sharp, most terrifying, and she knew that it wouldn't be quick. It wouldn't be quick at all. Terror was slick and hot and bitter in her throat and she tried to thrash against her bonds, but she was strung too taut to do more than wiggle.

"Mm, keep doing that," he teased as he strolled up next to her with a glass of clear liquid in hand. "I like when you shimmy."

Claire stilled immediately, unable to keep from muttering under her breath.

"What was that?" he asked curiously, eyeing her.

What the hell, she figured. She was dead anyway, might as well go out with her usual sass. "I said… you're a pig."

He nodded slightly at that, set the cup down on the table with a small frown. And then his arm whipped up lightning-fast and he backhanded her hard enough to make her see stars. The side of her face throbbed and she tasted blood. Well. That hadn't been particularly productive, had it? Okay. For future reference, don't insult the guy who has you trussed up and next to a table of sharp instruments.

A moment later, he had her hair fisted in his hand, yanking her head back up and shoving the glass against her mouth. The contents splashed against her tongue and she was surprised to find that it was nothing but cool, fresh water. Eyeing him balefully, she gulped down several swallows.

"Expecting vinegar on a sponge, were you?" he asked before taking the glass and setting it aside. And then he picked up a slim, short knife. Shit. "I want you hydrated, Claire. Wouldn't want you to pass out before I'm done, after all."

She was breathing hard now despite the pain it caused, panic rising again like a tide, but there was no way to fight or avoid anything he might try to do to her. She watched the knife draw close to her, watched the blade until it disappeared beneath the swell of her breast. She felt nothing, and knew she would feel nothing more, but she couldn't bear not knowing what was happening to her, so she flicked her gaze to the mirror in front of her. He had just cut a slim, presumably shallow slice into her side. Blood welled in it, then began to drip, and still she felt nothing. Not a damned thing.

Maybe this was all a dream, just a really bad dream. Maybe that's why she thought she was numb. He sliced into her again, lower, along her belly. Again, she felt nothing, but watched the blood rise and then drip down slowly to stain the top edge of her underwear. Oh God. He could keep her alive for days like this, couldn't he? With shallow cuts and no pain to make her pass out. She'd be forced to watch while he just slowly flayed her. Claire suddenly wished she was like her baby sister Janie, who passed out cold at the sight of blood every time she got so much as a paper cut.

"Why—"

He paused and looked up to her, seemingly pleased that she'd spoken. "Why what?"

"Why are you doing this?"

"That's a good question," he asked, kneeling to carve a curling pattern along the outside of her thigh. "I don't really know."

"I don't believe you."

"Hmm." He just shrugged and kept up what he was doing.

"Why can't I feel anything?"

"Would you rather?" he asked curiously, standing again. Claire didn't answer, just stared at him, and his eyes went dark and impatient before he brought the knife back and rammed it hard, hilt-deep into her side. She barely heard his second, more insistent "_Would you rather_?" though her own pained cry.

"No!" she managed to choke, and he wrenched the knife out of her again with a deadly smile. Her vision swam with the deep burn of pain, and she wished she could just slip under into unconsciousness, but no luck. Her sight cleared a moment later, and she was stuck staring at the blood oozing down her side as he continued to cut her.

"That's what I thought."

Claire bit her lip hard, then realized with a trickle of horror that her fingers were beginning to tingle. Whatever he'd used to numb her was wearing off, and soon she'd feel everything. Everywhere. Until the pain and the blood loss ended her. Claire had never been a praying kind of girl, but she couldn't help it now. She prayed to God, to any of the Saints she could remember, to any deity she could think of. Where was an angel when you really needed one?

But if God was listening, she couldn't tell. There were no angels coming to deliver her, no help on the way. She was going to die here. She knew it. And as the pin-prick tingles spread up her arm, she knew it was be a long, painful while before this was over.

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Remember: SomewhereApart's got the rest. Go give us some love!


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